Paramount restructures ad sales with focus on agencies

Paramount has restructured its ad sales leadership to streamline its relationship with media buyers. Under the leadership of John Halley, who was promoted to president of ad sales earlier this fall, Paramount’s sales team will feature dedicated holding company, digital and specialty content teams.

While competitors such as Warner Bros. Discover have opted for property-centric sales teams and past network restructurings have favored brand clients, Halley said in an internal memo that Paramount’s approach is a response to a trend in media buying to consolidated, simplified buying across portfolios.

Karen Phillips has been appointed executive VP of partnerships with Omnicom Media Group, GroupM, Horizon Media, independents and new business development, while Chris Simon holds the same title for Interpublic Group, Dentsu and Publicis. Leads for each holding company will report to Phillips and Simon, while the two VPs will report to Halley.

The structure will focus on greater client efficiency, with each lead serving “as centralized representatives of Paramount’s portfolio with singular accountability across all assets, mapping to the agency investment structure,” Halley wrote in the memo.

Also reporting to Phillips and Simon is David Lawenda, who was named chief digital advertising officer. Lawenda will oversee Paramount’s digital ad sales, including Paramount+ and Pluto TV as well as its programmatic and local sales.

Reporting directly to Halley is a team of specialty sales leads. John Bogusz will head sports sales and Louis Carr will oversee BET’s linear and digital channels. Linda Rene will lead primetime sales and branded partnerships and Travis Scoles will head Paramount’s advanced advertising products and efforts in measurement. Dave Morris was named chief client officer to oversee cross-portfolio sales strategy on behalf of Paramount’s top clients.

The announcement also included a consolidation of the sales division’s operations, marketing, finance and human resources teams. 

“While the structural change we are introducing today is significant, this skilled and experienced team of executives will ensure consistency and leadership through this transition,” wrote Halley, promising more innovations within Paramount’s sales team soon.